Curiouser and Curiouser
by lovely-narcissa
Summary: Alice wakes up in a stranger land that she has no recollection of, with an even stranger man anxiously leaning over her.After a bit of slight conversation and a great many tears she remembers, but time waits for no man, woman or hatter and Alice has to g


**Hey, I am pretty sure this is the longest one-shot I have ever written, It is also my first **_**Alice**_** fic. I have had this idea in my mind since I first saw it: I wrote the first 500 words or so and forgot about it. So yesterday I found it again, changed a few bits and ~tadaaa~! **

**Thanks for choosing to read it, I hope you enjoy. Please review!**

"Alice?

Alice sighed softly in her dreamlike state, her sub-conscience delighting in the soft breath that tickled her face.

"Alice!"

The voice was more urgent now, pleading.

"Hmmm?" She replied dreamily,

"Alice!"

Alice felt hands gently shake her shoulders, in the fashion of a somebody determined to wake another from their dreams.

Alice smiled, slightly more awake now, however did not care to open her eyes. The warm sunlight kissed her face in a pleasant way, a way that reminded her of long ago summers and carelessly running through fields of emerald grass.

"Alice!"

Alice furrowed her brow and pouted slightly, rolling over so she now lay- eyes still closed- on her side.

"What is it Thomas?" she groaned.

Silence fell, a pensive awkward pause, as if the intruder to her sleep was unsure of how to react to her question. By this time, Alice's brain had kicked in and sensible thoughts started floating between her ears. One of which detected the sudden change in atmosphere, and another noticing that the sunlight had disappeared. Indeed, Alice sensed that someone was infact leaning over her.

"A-Alice?"

Alice's eyes flew open to spy two anxious spring green ones, staring at her intently.

Alice screamed, and sat up, her hand clamping against her mouth to smother her own horrified shout.

The owner of the eyes had also sat up, righting himself from his previous leaning position. He sat perfectly still, a mixture of fright and great sadness upon his odd face.

Odd. That is a word that would definitely fit him, Thought Alice. After all, does one often see any un-odd people look so peculiar?

He had quite a square countenance upon him, pale white, the colour of porcelain, but somehow vaguer, and frizzy crimson hair that one could only describe as ghastly.

Yet Alice thought him beautiful.

Alice stared at him wide eyed and only distantly noticed him slowly reach out a weathered hand to remove her own from her mouth. There was a moment of odd awkwardness as the creature before her licked his pink lips nervously and blinked far more than one naturally should.

Finally the lump that had previously housed in Alice's throat dislodged itself and she was able to speak once more:

"Who are you?" She whispered.

The sad electric eyes grew sadder and the hopeful smile vanished.

"You don't remember me?"

Silently Alice shook her head. The stranger licked his lips again and rose onto his knees and consequently his feet, his hands clasped behind his back. Alice saw with some distress that he was shaking.

"Are you angry with me, good sir?" she inquired, somewhat apprehensively.

He spun around, the smile returning, but Alice saw it did not reach his eyes; it was most definitely a sad smile.

"Angry? At you?" He rushed forward to kneel in front of Alice again.

It was now that Alice took a glance to observe her surroundings: she saw that she was in a meadow, no, more like a garden, with luscious green grass which (she knew for she was seated on it) was soft as eiderdown. Flowers grew here and there, large, brightly coloured flowers, perhaps taller than Alice and they were _whispering_.

"This is like no garden of earth I have seen," thought Alice curiously. She noticed also the sky, which was as blue as the sea of the Mediterranean she had so long ago sailed.

"I could never be angry at _you, _Alice."

Her attention was brought back to the man before her whose odd face was now shockingly close to her own.

She stared back at him. He frowned.

"It _is _you, Alice, isn't it?"

Alice cocked her head.

"Well," she said, "that would entirely depend on which Alice you were expecting."

"Ah, well you definitely _sound_ like Alice," he laughed gently and smiled again; this time it lit his eyes.

Alice pressed her lips together but didn't say anything. The man obviously took this as a que to proceed and so he did, thus:

"But you don't look like Alice…"

"Oh?" Alice said incredulously.

"No, not at all. Alice has skin that is smooth and white, and her hair is a wonderful shade of yellow. If it weren't for the blue of your eyes, the colour of your dress and the muchness that you carry about your person, I would have said that you weren't Alice at all."

He looked at Alice expectantly. Alice raised her sun browned, wrinkled old hand to her face, and looked at the sky blue of her dress.

"My eyes? My dress? My… Muchness?"

"Oh yes," he replied, nodding in a matter of fact fashion, "we call that colour 'Alice blue'."

He indicated towards Alice's nightgown and then looked up at her through his yellow eyelashes.

But Alice was puzzled.

"Us?"

The stranger looked crestfallen.

"You mean to tell me that you don't remember… any of us?"

Alice adopted a most sincere, sober expression.

"I am terribly sorry."

"No one?"

Alice shook her head.

"Not Nivens?"

She shook her head again.

"Not Malymkun?"

Another shake.

"Not Absolem, Thakery, Chessur?"

Alice looked at him pityingly.

"Not even Mirana…" The stranger looked at Alice and Alice realised with shocked astonishment that there were tears forming in his eccentric eyes.

"Not…" His voice had grown horse and Alice could hear a slight Scottish lilt to it, "You really don't remember…me?"

Alice shook her head once more, but this time she felt sad, and she couldn't understand why.

"Sir, I really am sorry," and she was. It was frustrating, thought Alice, for search her memory much as she might, she could not recall ever seeing this bizarre, bizarre man, or even this strange land ever before… yet somehow they were oddly familiar, like a dream she had long forgotten and the more she tried to remember the exact details, the more they slipped away.

That sat in silence for what seemed to Alice like hours and hours, however can't have been more than a few minutes.

"You're crying?" The stranger frowned and reached forward with a weathered hand to wipe the tears that were indeed falling down Alice's cheek.

"I am?" She asked, confused, "I do apologise, how improper of me."

Squeezing the last few tears from her eyes, she too went to wipe the tears from her face. Their hands connected and Alice gasped, withdrawing her hand as if she had been stung.

"Did I hurt you?" The stranger looked upset.

"No, no not at all," Alice replied, "It's just, just.."

"Just what?"

Alice rearranged her legs, crossing them and making sure that her nightgown covered her ankles.

"It was like… a memory."

The stranger cocked his head.

"When our hands touched, just for a moment, there were memories, oh! So _many_ memories!"

The stranger watched in anguish as the woman, Alice, _his_ Alice, the Alice who looked so different yet was exactly the same, clutched her head in agony and started moaning incomprehensively.

"What is it? What is wrong?"

He placed his hands over hers and started to shush her, holding her as one would hold a baby or the most delicate of bone china teacups.

"My head, oh dear lord, my head hurts so much," she groaned.

The stranger was panicking. What was he to do? He was no good at consoling, he ran from pain.

_Look at her_ the voice of Madness whispered in his ear. The stranger tried to swat him away, but Madness dodged his blow. _Look at her, hold her face up to yours._ So he did, giving in to Madness like he was so prone to doing, he pulled her face up so that it was directly in front of his own.

"Alice! Look at me!"

Her face, scrunched in pain, relaxed as she opened her eyes and a wave of calm seemed to settle about her.

Alice looked into his eyes, oh those beautiful, spring green eyes and sighed. She could see, see her reflection in them. She saw a girl in her late teens and she was _smiling_, laughing, her blond hair trailing over her shoulders, her skin smooth and pale, her eyes, shining with laughter.

"H-Hatter," Alice stuttered, "I, I remember."

And she did. Her head was full of bright, vivid memories, like dreams yet so much more real. She remembered the adventures, the curious food that made one smaller or larger, the Frabjous Day, the Jabberwoky, the Red Queen, the White Queen, all of her friends, crazy tea parties and, most wonderfully of all, she remembered _him._

"Oh Tarrent," She tried to speak, but the effort was too much and she fell backwards onto the emerald grass, her breaths becoming laboured and heavy and her eyes drooping.

"Tarrent…" She sighed; she was in such _dreadful _pain, but she smiled and nothing in the whole entire world would have kept her from doing so.

She could feel the sun on her face again and she found solace.

"Alice?"

The worried voice was back, and one again Alice sensed someone leaning over her. She opened her eyes to one again stare into those of the stranger, that familiar stranger, Tarrent Hightopp, Royal Hatter, Mad Hatter.

"Yes Tarrent?" She breathed, sighing. But wait. She stopped still. Once again she could see her reflection in the man's eyes but it was different. Her breathing became laboured once again as she stared.

The reflection was not of the laughing nineteen year old, but of an old woman, her tanned face speckled with sun damage. Lines covered her face, around her mouth, cheeks and eyes and the hair on her head was not thick and golden like sunlight, but fine and white, like snow. Alice gasped. It was her. And she was old. She had lived her life and now, Alice realised it was coming to an end. The smile on Alice's face died somewhat and she focused back on the face that hovered above her.

"Why have you not aged, Hatter?" she asked.

The Hatter looked around nervously and once again licked his pink lips, as if he were about to tell a most secret story.

"Time does not come to Underland, Alice," he said painfully, "He hasn't done for many, many years."

Alice was curious.

"Why?"

The hatter shook his head hopelessly.

"No one knows. I think Absolem did, once, but no one has seen him since the Frabjous Day."

"Oh."

The Hatter nodded solemnly.

"Hatter?"

"Yes Alice?"

"What happened after I…left?"

The Hatter paused as if choosing his words carefully.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing: We waited for your return but… you never came."

"But I am here now!"

The Hatter nodded,

"I know, and I have not gone to fetch them, I have no idea why."

Alice took 'them' to mean the friends that she had forgotten then remembered again.

Another pause.

"Hatter?"

"Yes Alice?"

"After I left, I remembered."

"You did?"

"Yes, but only for a little while."

"Oh."

"I sailed the world."

"You did?"

The Hatter's eyes lit up in excitement.

"Oh yes, I saw such wondrous sights! India, China, Africa, America.."

The Hatter waited.

"And then I returned, and when I returned, I now realise that I had forgotten. And I married, and I had children, but I recall they are all grown now, and I think that they have children of their own."

The Hatter waited, Alice didn't notice his tears of sorrow for what could have been.

"And Hatter?"

"Alice?" he choked.

"I missed you."

Alice closed her eyes. She could feel the frailty of her body, like she would snap like a twig at the slightest of movements.

The Hatter blinked, the tears overflowing his lashes to spill down his cheeks. One dropped onto Alice's face but she didn't notice.

"Alice?"

"Yes Hatter?"

Alice opened her eyes, a dreamy expression washing over her, as if she had not a care in the world.

"I… I lo…"

"Look! Absolem!" she cried suddenly, weakly lifting a hand to point and the butterfly which was indeed hovering fickly around Tarrent's shoulder. "How nice," she muttered to herself as once again her eyelids began to droop. From behind her closed eyelid Alice could see pictures, happy pictures, the births of her children, sailing the oceans, tea parties with the Hatter, reciting poems, watching the Tweedles, but they were growing fainter, and light was replacing them. Her breathing became slower calmer and a smile once again found its way to her lips.

The Hatter stared at the woman in sad silence as he watched his Alice slip gently away from him. Had it not been for his keen hearing, he might have not heard her faint

"Curiouser and curiouser," and then the fainter "What did you say Tarrent?" before her chest stopped rising and he knew that she was gone.

More tears flowed and splashed against Alice's face with increasing force until the Hatter realized that they were mingling with rain. Clouds had gathered. Underland was weeping.

Gently the Mad Hatter moved her elderly hands and placed them on her chest. Absolem fluttered and landed on her right index finger.

Silently the butterfly looked at the Hatter, and the Hatter knew that time had returned to Underland, everyone would age, and life would go on just as it had for longer than anyone could remember.

Tarrent Hightopp leaned forward and kissed the dead woman's wet lips, a soft, chaste kiss. In that one moment he poured out his emotions and as the rain continued to fall, as he continued to cry the tears of grief and sorrow that he felt, as he leaned back and wiped his face with a soaking handkerchief, he spoke:

"I said 'I love you'".


End file.
